Let's say someone took the linux kernel source from the official repository, removed the GPL license and dedicated the work to public domain or put it under any other license, and for kicks back-dated the files so they are older than the originals.

Now take it one step further. For the sake of example, let's assume all of this atheros driver nonsense went to a German court and the GNU/FSF/SFLC/Linux or whoever you want to call yourselves lost a criminal copyright infringement suit. You have now been legally proven to be guilty code theft.

After such a ruling let's assume some jerk was to do the all the horrific stuff mentioned in the first paragraph above to the linux source tree, along with a little regex magic to call it something other than "linux" and seeded the Internet with countless copies.

None of this has happened. What has happened is that people who donot have full possession of the facts and have no legal expertise--people whom from the very beginning we have been trying to help--havemade irresponsible charges and threatened lawsuits, thus slowing downour efforts to help them. It might be useful to recall the firststage of this process, when OpenBSD developers were accused ofmisappropriating Atheros code, and SFLC investigated and proved thatno such misappropriation had occurred? Wild accusations about ourmotives are even more silly than they are false.

We understand that attribution issues are critically important to freesoftware developers; we are accustomed to the strong feelings that areinvolved in such situations. In the fifteen years I have spent givingfree legal help to developers throughout the community, attributiondisputes have been, always, the most emotionally charged.

But making threats of litigation and throwing around words like"theft" and "malpractice" was a Really Bad Idea, because once somepeople started using that language--thus making adversaries ratherthan collaborators of themselves--I had no choice but to ask myclients and my colleagues to stop communicating with them.

Let me therefore point out one last time that if the threats oflitigation and bluster about crime and malpractice--none of which hasthe slightest basis in fact or law--were withdrawn, we would be ableto resume detailed communication with everyone who has a stake in theoutcome.

Also, and again for the last time, let me state that SFLC'sinstructions from its clients are to establish all the factsconcerning the development of the current relevant code (which meansthe painstaking reconstruction of several independent and overlappinglines of development, including forensic reconstruction throughline-by-line code reviews where version control system information isnot available), as well as to resolve all outstanding legal issues,and to make policy recommendations, if possible, that would result inall projects, under both GPL and ISC, having full access to all codeon their preferred terms, on an *ongoing* basis, with full respect foreveryone's legal rights. We continue to believe those policy goalsare achievable in this situation. The required work has been mademore arduous because some people have chosen not to cooperate in goodfaith. But we will complete the work as soon as we can, and we will,as Mr Garvik says, follow the community's practice of completepublication, so everyone can see all the evidence.

We will make no more public statements until the work is complete, andwe will be neither hurried nor intimidated by people who shout at usinstead of helping.